Soekarno

Sukarno (1901-1970), dominant figure of Indonesia’s nationalist movement against the Dutch and the country’s first president (1945-1968). He was toppled following an attempted coup and held under house arrest until his death.

BACKGROUND AND PERSONAL LIFE

Sukarno was born in the city of Surabaya in eastern Java. At the time, Java and the rest of Indonesia were under Dutch colonial control. Although brought up in the traditional Javanese cultural world, Sukarno was educated in modern Dutch colonial schools. In 1921 he entered the Bandung Institute of Technology to study architecture, graduating in 1926. Sukarno had been increasingly involved in nationalist politics since his teens, when he had boarded in the house of H. O. S. Tjokroaminoto, a leading nationalist politician. It was in Bandung that he decided his future lay in politics, not architecture.

By 1926 Sukarno had been married twice, first to Sitti Utari, daughter of Tjokroaminoto, and then, after divorcing her, to Inggit Garnasih. He subsequently married at least four more times, having as many as four wives simultaneously. Though permitted under Islamic law, polygamy was not a common practice in Indonesia, and in the 1950s and 1960s attracted considerable criticism, particularly from women’s organizations.

EARLY CAREER

In 1927 Sukarno cofounded the Indonesian Nationalist Party (Partai Nasional Indonesia, or PNI) and became its first leader. The goal of the party was to achieve independence for Indonesia through popular struggle against the Dutch. A skilled public speaker, Sukarno quickly drew a mass following for the PNI. In 1929 the Dutch jailed him for being a threat to public order, and the PNI collapsed in his absence. Released in 1931, Sukarno resumed his political activity, but he was arrested again in 1933 and exiled, first to the island of Flores and then to Sumatra. By the time of his exile, he was Indonesia’s leading nationalist politician.

When Japan invaded and occupied Indonesia in 1942, during World War II, Sukarno returned to Jakarta and worked with the Japanese regime. He argued later that his collaboration with the Japanese enabled him to advance the cause of Indonesian independence and protect the Indonesian people from the worst excesses of the occupation.

In 1944 a committee was established to prepare for Indonesian independence, and Sukarno was a leading member of the committee. On July 1, 1945, Sukarno delivered an important speech to the committee urging the adoption of the Panca Sila (Five Principles) as the ideological basis of the new state. The five principles were nationalism, internationalism (or humanitarianism), democracy, social justice, and belief in God.

RISE TO PRESIDENCY

On August 17, 1945, immediately following Japan’s surrender to the Allies, Sukarno and fellow nationalist Muhammad Hatta declared Indonesia’s independence. The next day the provisional parliament adopted a constitution and elected Sukarno president. The constitution included the Panca Sila in its preamble and gave the president a great deal of authority. The Dutch refused to accept the independence proclamation. For the next five years Indonesia and The Netherlands negotiated and fought with one another. Finally, in December 1949 the Dutch acknowledged Indonesia’s independence, but the status of the western half of New Guinea (now the province of Papua) remained in dispute.

Although Sukarno was an important symbol of the national struggle against the Dutch, he soon lost political ground to domestic rivals. By 1949 he was little more than a figurehead, while real political power lay with the prime minister. This arrangement was made official in new constitutions adopted in 1949 and 1950, which established a parliamentary, rather than presidential, political system for Indonesia.

DOWNFALL

Political tensions within Indonesia boiled over on the night of September 30, 1965, when army troops and left-wing civilians staged a coup attempt, murdering six army generals and announcing the formation of a new revolutionary government. General Suharto, head of the army’s strategic command, rallied loyalist troops to suppress the coup. Although the identity and motives of the coup’s instigators remains controversial, the army alleged that the Communist PKI was responsible. Thus, in late 1965 army units and Muslim groups began to purge Communists (both real and suspected) from national life. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed or imprisoned in the crackdown.

Sukarno’s role in these events remains in dispute. He never publicly supported the coup attempt, but neither did he criticize it. This ambiguity, along with the elimination of the Communists, substantially weakened his political standing. By 1966 General Suharto had eased Sukarno out of effective power, and the following year Suharto became acting president. Sukarno was formally deposed in favor of Suharto in 1968. Wary of the implications of either putting him on trial for involvement in the attempted coup or allowing him complete freedom of action, Suharto kept Sukarno under house arrest in Jakarta until his death.

Despite government attempts to downplay his role in Indonesian politics, Sukarno’s image underwent a revival beginning in the 1980s among young people and others critical of the Suharto regime. Sukarno’s eldest daughter Megawati Sukarnoputri became a symbol of popular resistance in the pro-democracy movement that ultimately led to Suharto’s resignation in 1998. Megawati became vice president of Indonesia in 1999 and president in 200